Puja and Beyond -Kumari

[Guest guest]

what a nice post! your toolbox also seems to contain the all important

tool Love. which i think Kali ultimately uses as a scissors to cut

the kite's string. She is really fond of the sharp utensils, huh?

 

, "ty_maa" <ds.james wrote:

>

> Dear Holy Family,

>

> My years of puja, in which I spent hours each day in formal worship,

> flower arranging and caring for the altar, were a necessary

> preparation for my present work.

>

> A few years ago the Divine Mother placed me in a high tech job where I

> work 12-14 hours a day, as well as doing technical seva for the Devi

> Mandir. Now my puja has necessarily turned into karma yoga.

>

> What is clear to me now is that without my many years of intensive

> worship, it would have been difficult or impossible for me to do

> secular work in the spirit of worship, that is, as karma yoga.

>

> Any activity one does requires tools or skills of some sort, and what

> I would like to share with you is a few of the spiritual tools which I

> learned to use in puja, and which I now carry with me into my secular

> work.

>

> My spiritual toolbox contains:

>

> Faith- Sri Ramakrishna said that "Faith is the root of all". My

> experience doing worship taught me that although it begins with

> imagination, it soon needs to turn into the conviction, through faith,

> that God is real and that my worship is a living relationship with

> God. So I prayed to have sincere faith in God and in the reality of my

> worship.

>

> Longing- Sri Ramakrishna said; "Longing is the one thing needful and

> that God is drawn to such a devotee the way a cow is drawn to rich oil

> cakes (something cows love to eat). So, I prayed with faith to

> increase my longing for God daily as I did my worship.

>

> Divine Presence- Successful worship must become a living relationship

> between the soul and God. So I prayed with faith and longing that I

> would become more and more aware of the presence of God- just as if my

> friend had opened the door and walked into the room.

>

> Emptiness of Self- To be sensitive to the presence of God, I knew that

> I had to be free from distractions which obscure that presence. As

> Sri Ramakrishna said; "one's hand may be small, but if we put it

> before our eyes it can obscure the very sun itself." So I prayed to

> become increasingly empty of the noisy mind: memories, thoughts,

> worries, attachments, identifications, and all else that come between

> the soul and God.

>

> So, as I moved from my years of formal worship into the market place

> of the world, I also took with me my spiritual toolbox containing

> faith, longing, presence of God, and emptiness of self with which to

> transform my secular work into divine worship.

>

> Ramprasad said: "O Mother, You are flying kites in the market place of

> this world, and out of a hundred thousand, at most, one or two break

> loose to become free. Then you laugh and clap your hands."

>

> So I pray that through my worship and my karma yoga, my kite might

> also break loose and become free as You laugh and clap your lovely

hands.

>

>

> With love,

> Kumari

>